The International Feed Industry Federation (IFIF) and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) held their 12th annual meeting at the FAO Headquarters on 3-4 October 2013, to address together the challenges of ensuring sustainability in animal feeding, feed safety and food security.

Dr. José Graziano da Silva, Director General of the FAO, addressed IFIF representatives and highlighted the importance of working together with the private sector to tackle the challenges facing the feed and food chain. Underlining the importance of feed in global food safety and security, Dr. Graziano commended the long-standing partnership between IFIF and the FAO Animal Production & Health Division.

The meeting was officially opened by Dr. Ren Wang, FAO Assistant Director-General for Agriculture and Consumer Protection, together with Dr. Berhe Tekola, Director of the FAO Animal Production & Health Division and Mr. Mario Sergio Cutait, IFIF Chairman.

In addition to the new FAO strategy on partnership with the private sector, environmental sustainability was a central theme of the meeting, with the presentation of a number of concrete projects aimed at improving the sustainability of livestock production. This included a presentation of preliminary results from the IFIF / FEFANA Specialty Feed Ingredients Sustainability project (SFIS), an update on the Livestock Environmental Assessment and Performance (LEAP) partnership, a first report on an IFIF supported AFIA / FEFAC initiative to develop common feed life cycle assessments (LCA) guidelines, and updates on the work of the Global Agenda of Action (GAA).

FAO Regional Offices from Latin America and the Caribbean, as well as Africa, joined the meeting to discuss priorities at regional level and explore opportunities for collaboration, such as capacity building, with IFIF’s national and regional association members. Other topics of discussion included the IFIF FAO collaboration on the development of global feed statistics, as well an update of animal feed related work within Codex Alimentarius.

The meeting also discussed the agenda for the upcoming 7th International Feed Regulators Meeting (IFRM) on 27-28 January 2014, which brings together the FAO, IFIF as well as international regulators and experts from across the world to discuss critical feed issues facing governments and industry today.